


Foxtrot Tango Whiskey

by laughingpineapple



Category: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Genre: Companionable Snark, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-17
Updated: 2012-10-17
Packaged: 2017-11-16 12:39:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or maybe not much of the second, but that's a phonetic alphabet for you. It's still code for “You have been OWNED and I'm ready for a rematch when you are”. Cabanela gets his dance(s) – with commentary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foxtrot Tango Whiskey

 

“That...” Alma laughed and gasped for breath. “That was not quite like the waltzes I'm used to.”

Cabanela cupped her cheek in an affectionate brush, amused at the unexpected dash of pink on her ashen skin. Her makeup honestly did little to liven it up – he felt accomplished.

“Nothing like a foxtrot, baby! I was sure it would suit you.” He let her rest on his arm, holding her waist, taking a few breaths to cherish the moment. Her eyes were happy. Good. “Then again, there's nothing quiiite like a waltz either. Can you waltz?”

“That and a little piano is all I remember from back home. I'm not much of a music person, I'm afraid.”

“Still two more than your husband, and I haven't heard _hiiim_ apologize. We can try a waltz the next time you two lose a bet.” He let her go with a twirl and a bow, squeezing her hand and getting a firm hold as a response. Again, good.

“We don't do bets,” Jowd pouted, snapping out of his best impression as an inanimate part of the couch. As relaxed and amused a spectator as his friend had been for the duration of the song, Cabanela had seen him frowning and sinking into the cushions since the music faded. Excellent. Nothing like the expectation of proving him wrong.

“Beg your pardon, it was a daaare. Which you lost. Overconfidence is my game, baby, and it takes styyyle to pull it off. Live and learn, as they say. So. Your turn.” He grinned.

“I do not dance.”

“Exceeept when you do.”

Alma laughed. “Just give in, Jowd. You'll be terrible at it, you'll love it.”

Cabanela stopped fiddling with the stereo to turn his head and raise a brow at the two of them.

“I am fascinated, baby. Is this how you make him do things? It might come in useful at work...”

She clammed up in a tiny smile. _Not_ _~_ _telling_ _~_ , her gestures said, but Jowd's roaring laugh might as well have spelled it out: his mood had flipped from uncomfortable to self-deprecatingly delighted – which might still come in useful at work, Cabanela noted.

“Mind your steps and take the lead, partner.” Jowd rose from his couch and offered him his hand, firm and observant and trying to make sense of the situation more than to live it. “And deal me the deal?” He placidly followed where all the hands and elbows and legs were supposed to go.

“Tango, baby”, Cabanela answered as the music started. “I trust you weren't expecting anything less.”

“B minus for effort, not buying it. I'd work on my acting if I were you.”

“At least commend him on his serious tone?”, Alma chimed in.

“Yeah, no. I doubt anyone knows him well enough to notice that and not enough to see the smug grin that's plastered all over his face.”

“Fair is fair, I can see him gleaming from over here.”

“Hardly a feat, and you can barely see his face from there.”

“Shut up and follow the music, Jowd. It's a swing.”

“See? There's my answer. I strive to learn.”

 

 

“That was... gentle”, Jowd said minutes later, thoughtfully circling the rim of his half-empty glass with his finger.

“I could take that as an insult in at least three different ways, baby.”

“Inferred expectations, lack of enthusiasm and...?” Alma counted. “If the third was pessimism, might I suggest you reconsider your choice of friendships?”

“Three as a manner of speaking. But thaaanks for the rundown?”

“Given that the first two were gloom squared and cubed, I would be surprised if you really were surprised. It's nothing personal, you know.”

“Where would I be without my interpreter”, Jowd laughed. “And cut me some slack; I barely acknowledged that this 'dancing' act involved people and music. The more you know, as they say.”

“I live to seeerve, partner.” He flipped on the couch, strategically landing a little to the left of the hard space between the cushions.

“Still not interested in the details, I'm afraid.” Jowd kicked his leg and took back some space. “But I'll admit that you were interesting.”

Cabanela stopped in his tracks, which involved an elaborate maneuver to lean his arms on top of the couch's back, arched an eyebrow, suppressed a grin and three retorts and waited.

Ah, yes. The tension of dashing right into a trap; he would not have missed it for the world – nor would he have allowed the man to drop the subject right there, not on his honor as a detective. But Jowd seemed earnest in his struggle for words (then again, didn't he ever, and that beard was a fine cover for any revealing twitches of the lip) and Cabanela held back, turning toward him a muscle at a time, trying to infer any and all points of interest that his undeniable dance leading talents might have sparked, in the admittedly remote chance that his friend wasn't pulling his leg beside kicking it.

“I believe that”, Alma said to his back, calm as a blanket, “by 'you were interesting' Jowd meant that movements tell what words do not, you know? We got a tangible glimpse of you.” She shuffled her drink. He twisted his neck and stared. “The shared gestures, the little steps and nods. They all reveal that you're a melodramatic, overinvested cheat and that the world is full of bad losers, but if such a thing as a bad winner exists, it sure looks a lot like you.”

“Alma!”

“You forgot clingy.”

“My bad! That too.”

“I am surrounded. Surrooounded.” They weren't even looking at him, the backstabbing vipers, they were too busy exchanging visual 'well done's and 'my pleasure's. Couldn't anyone spare at least a pat for his bruised ego? It wasn't some teensy tiny little thing nobody'd ever noticed, his ego. It deserved some measure of respect.

Jowd slapped him on the shoulder hard enough to make him cough.“In a good sense!”, he said, with his least sincere smile and his head tilted at the specific angle that he'd nailed down as _anything but serious_.

Right.

“But you were so honestly _there_ , with every ounce of your attention.”

“And. 'And' you were, not 'but', Alma, you're busting our 'in a good sense!' cover.”

“Not the thiiickest deception, baby.” Cabanela groaned. “If that is your idea of camouflage, remiiind me to stay the blazes away from your undercover cases. Now be a gentleman and let the lady speak, will you?”  
Not that anything those two said to a third party wasn't co-signed and syndicated. Still, that last sentence had started to sound like a non-insult and if one was fishing for non-insults one had better lay one's bait as far as possible from Detective Jowd – he briefly wondered how he'd even proposed.

“People say what they want about Jowd... you're not easy to read yourself, you know? You bolt and dart and follow your own rhythm to who knows where. And you let us follow, just for this once. I think I could see it – no, it's not a 'seeing' matter, it's a movement matter, it's all about feeling, right? The focus, it goes in every single gesture and it could be frightening because it's so intense, but it's not. It's you. It is gentle, as he said. So different from our lives that keeping up is hard at times, but I think I got it, part of it, this absolute intentness if you will, and I am honoured that this time, at its centre was us.”

“Thanks for the insight.”

Well thank you too Jowd, after letting her do all the talking, but again, co-signed and syndicated, no complaints there.

He matched their grinning.

“This time, baby?”, he whistled, and sat back like a lizard in the sun; all other remarks, he could keep to himself.

First and foremost, as he realized through his aching toes and sore back, possibly a strained muscle or two: when some people claim that they do not dance, they may indeed have a point.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I suppose... I should start posting all of the past year's fics here... this comes from last January. Thanks Clover for the beta reading!


End file.
